Various types of merchandise are sold or offered to the public in a packaged form. Some items are packaged in plastic bags, with the bags secured to a common package holder. This holder can be provided with an aperture to allow suspending of the holder, and packages from a vertically elevated position.
One type of merchandise that the present invention is adapted to accommodate is disposable bags for wet umbrellas. New umbrellas are generally sold with a storage bag. The storage bag is usually made of a material similar to the material of the umbrella, such as a nylon weave, and is sized and configured to hold the umbrella when the umbrella is not in use. If the umbrella is wet from a recent rain shower, placing the umbrella in the storage bag will keep the rain water from dripping off of the umbrella and wetting the floor, where the water may dirty the floor or cause a passerby to slip.
However, because the owner of an umbrella seldom knows when he or she will need to use the umbrella, the owner will frequently, and often haphazardly, place the umbrella in a place where it will be available at a moment's notice, such as in an office desk, a purse, a brief case, the floor of a closet, the trunk of an automobile, or even the floor of an automobile. After a period of storage and use of the umbrella, the storage bag often becomes lost, and in any event is usually unavailable when needed following use of the umbrella during a rain shower.
Several years ago, the inventor developed an apparatus and method for supplying disposable receptacles for wet umbrellas. The disposable receptacles consist of an elongated plastic bag that is designed to fit over a closed umbrella. A stand was provided for displaying and dispensing the disposable receptacles. The stand consisted generally of a heavy base, a pole extending substantially vertically upward from the heavy base, and a bracket member for holding a plurality of disposable receptacles for umbrellas. Although a set of disposable receptacles for umbrellas is not particularly heavy, the uneven distribution of such sets at or near the top of a relatively long pole was sufficient to require some degree of structural support in order to maintain the pole in a substantially vertical orientation.
A number of problems and shortcomings were encountered with the arrangement of the foregoing design. In order to maintain the pole in a substantially vertical orientation, it was necessary to provide a large and heavy base. Many businesses and establishments preferred to display the stands only when needed, but the heavy base made this impracticable.
It was also thought that the stands would be more widely used if a large number of stands could be shipped to a location as needed, such as for a large meeting or convention, and then readily assembled and positioned during inclement weather. It was also discovered that because the stands were generally placed in areas of heavy foot traffic, the stands provided a potential medium for advertising. However, prior designs had failed to take advantage of the display and advertising potential of such stands. Accordingly, there is a need for an invention that overcomes the aforementioned problems and shortcomings.